Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Priapus, Marethyu
The Guild of Gamers: The Operative
Chapter 08: Spectre Vasir
– Tela Vasir –
She had to admit, Maxim was very good at his job.
She was not new to hunting down fleeing targets, and with Maxim injured, she'd expected him to be fairly easy to find. He was not. She'd used her contacts to check every source of medical aid he could possibly go to, from the legitimate hospitals to back-alley doctors. She'd found several traces, but each one turned out to be a false lead. Max's various identities pinging at hospitals and black market doctors. He was good at muddying the waters, forcing her to follow questionable leads to dead ends.
It became clear that he'd gotten one over her, as he'd obviously gotten medical aid while she had been chasing her tail. Too much time had passed for her to believe that someone like him was bleeding out in some backalley. No, he'd slipped under the radar and gotten the medical aid he needed.
But his ship was still locked down, and she'd kept a close eye on the Normandy to make sure he didn't slip away with Shepard. Nobody had tried to enter the Phantom, and the Normandy crew didn't seem aware of Maxim's situation from her bugging of their comms. Max had been in contact, but only with a vague message about finishing up some business. It was amusing to see that he was as frustrating to the legendary Commander Shepard as he was to her, as Shepard clearly wasn't used to her crew simply wandering off to do their own thing.
She was curious about his decision not to inform Shepard of his situation, but maybe it was a matter of pride. Or, more likely, he didn't trust the Cerberus crew not to take advantage of his weakened state. An agent like him would never expose a vulnerability to a group as untrustworthy as Cerberus, even if he didn't have bad blood with them.
So, if he hadn't gone to them for medical assistance or aid against her, where had he gone? All the identities the Citadel had on record for him were silent, but she had access to more than most. The Shadow Broker was displeased but unsurprised that Maxim had escaped her attempt on his life, even seeming amused for a moment, but they'd sent over the rest of Maxim's false identities and one had finally pinged.
It was a thoroughly uninteresting identity. Not a hotshot merc, arms dealer, intel broker or anything else fancy. The identity was for an extremely unimportant petty criminal, the kind of bottom feeder that the Citadel's less reputable wards had by the hundreds.
It had pinged for customs, having signed on with a trade ship heading to the Terminus systems to deliver goods to an Alliance settlement outside of council space. Within moments, she had access to the comms of the crew and found something that made her smile. They'd agreed to make an 'unscheduled' stop at Omega to drop off a crate on the request of their newest hire, in exchange for a considerable sum of creds. Maxim was using them to smuggle something out of Citadel, while leaving with them for the Terminus system, where he'd be harder to track.
The Citadel camera network helped her track him down, and she was immediately impressed at how different he looked. He was walking with a slouch that made him look shorter, his clothes far more rough, and his general look being far more scruffy than the handsome, well-kept agent she'd shot. He wasn't showing any signs of his injury, confirming her fear that he'd found a doctor she couldn't track.
Placing a lockdown on the ship, she made her way to the docking bay where a terrified captain was waiting for her, wringing his hands together in a panic. His fear only doubled when she identified herself as a Spectre, and with barely any pressure, he folded and admitted that he'd been asked to smuggle a single crate to Omega.
She didn't care about a minor smuggling charge, and when she made it clear she was here for their newest crew member, and that she'd forget their names if they cooperated, they couldn't sell him out fast enough. Entering the ship, she made her way to where the ship's systems said Max was, down in the cargo hold, weapon drawn. It wasn't her preference to fight a trained and dangerous target at close range, but her biotics would give her the edge over him.
"You might as well come out. It was a good chase, but you were never going to escape from me," Tela said confidently, her eyes on the crates he was hiding behind, her barrier up.
"Okay, okay," a rough voice said as the figure rose from the crates, and instantly she froze. He looked almost identical to the photo she'd had for this identity, but as she looked at the criminal, she knew one thing for sure. This was not Maxim Russ. "What's a fucking Spectre doing looking for me? Look, I'm just the hired help, I didn't know it was that serious-"
The figure had the same build as Max, the same colour hair and skin, but it was very clearly not him. But having a baseline to work on would make it much easier to doctor the footage that led her here.
"What were you hired to transport?" Tela asked, well aware she'd walked right into a trap.
"Some Quarian chick! There's a gang boss on Omega who wants her and-" the man stuttered, clearly afraid for his life. She looked at the crate he was standing in front of, unmarked, unlike the rest of the legitimate supplies that the crew were supposed to be transporting. It was sealed and shielded from scans, making her eyes widen in realisation. Turning, she went to make a run for it, to the surprise of the thug, but she got exactly one step away before she heard the explosion, the heat and debris striking her barrier.
It was a devastating blast, the man killed in an instant as she cursed the Shadow Broker for the bad intel. Even as she flew through the cargo bay, she worked out what had happened. Max had likely made this identity and then sold it to some bottom feeder who looked vaguely like him, so he could use it as bait later. He wouldn't need to lead a false trail if he hired the same man to do a job, causing the unwitting fool to act as a diversion.
Even with her considerable barriers, she knew she was badly hurt as sounds rang through her head. Screams, shouts, alarms. Her armour was scorched by the blast, her skin burnt, and her shield broken. Her armour automatically applying some medi-gel was likely the only reason she survived.
The sound of Citadel's trauma team arriving made her groan as she strained to look. She was a platinum subscriber, of course. Her job was too dangerous for her to take chances with her medical care. It was no wonder they arrived so quickly, retrieving the only survivor and placing her on a stretcher as her body cried out in pain, an injection of painkillers making her sigh in relief. This was not how this was supposed to go at all.
And yet, amidst the buzz and chaos, she heard something that made her freeze. Someone was claiming that it was a catastrophic engine failure that caused this, the blast killing the entire crew. That the ship wasn't well-maintained and was using black market parts, bought cheaply, causing a major engine failure.
She went to rise, alarm bells blaring in her head, but her body refused to move, and her eyes widened. The injection. A paralytic? Her biotics didn't answer her, her limbs remaining still as she was pulled into a transport.
The lead member of the Trauma Team squad remained helmeted as the transport took her to parts unknown, her eyes glaring at him with a knowing look before whatever they injected her with finally took over, and she failed to cling to her consciousness.
Damn it, he really was good.
– Later –
When she finally woke up, the pain was gone entirely. As was her armour for that matter, entirely nude and bound horizontally in some high-tech restraints in a dark room.
"Spectres are trained to resist torture," Tela pointed out, even as she strained to see in the pitch black of her new location. Once again, her biotics refused to obey her and her head swam with a strange, entirely unwelcome feeling.
"Oh, I know," Maxim responded, turning on a bright overhead light that shone down on her but left much of the room still cloaked in darkness. He stepped into view, dressed in a stolen trauma team outfit but without the helmet. "I don't expect that pain will break you."
"Rape, then?" Tela asked, almost mockingly as she looked down at where the restraints were holding her legs apart. Not wide, but enough that someone could move between them and have full access to her exposed ass and pussy.
"Please, we both know that wouldn't work either," Maxim laughed, seemingly almost offended at her suggestion. "I am a professional, Miss Vasir. Give me some credit. Even if that was my intention, we both know you're too dangerous for me to try that, even with you so thoroughly restrained. I just didn't want those fancy little scanners in your armour informing anyone of your status, and it is hardly my fault you went commando under it."
"What can I say, it's tight-fitting and provides all the support I need," Tela justifies with a shrug. "So, what then? Chemical interrogation? You do seem to have some talent for them."
"Something like that," Maxim admitted, rolling something out on a nearby table before he picked up a needle with an almost golden substance in it. "But again, we both know the risks of that kind of interrogation."
"Half the information will be hallucinated by a drugged mind," Tela agreed as he approached.
"Exactly. I'm good, but so are you. I know the Shadow Broker sent you after me, Agent Vasir. I know you've been their pet Spectre for years, handling matters for them so they can remain in the shadows," Maxim explained, her omnitool on the same table. He'd broken her encryption? "I have enough evidence to expose you, and cause quite the shitshow for the Council, the Spectre program, you and the Shadow Broker. I don't need to tell you how the world would see one of the agents who is supposed to be above reproach and oversight playing hitwoman for the Shadow Broker, right after the Saren mess."
"No, you don't. Fucking Saren already made my life more complicated with the Council trying to push for the Spectres to have more oversight, each Spectre getting a 'handler' who knows where we are, what we're doing, how many times a day we shit," Tela snorted derisively.
"Government oversight, the biggest threat people like us will ever face," Maxim chuckled, putting the needle down.
"It's what destroyed Section Seven, right? Adam Smasher's handler got cold feet after one too many atrocities and leaked his operations log," Tela agreed, getting a nod from him. If the Spectres got the restrictions people were lobbying for after Saren's fuck up, it would kill the program entirely. Each handler was another potential leak, and having to wait for their handlers to give them the green light would grind their operations to a halt. "What do you want from me?"
Maxim smiled, glad she was getting the idea.
"The Shadow Broker has used you as the scalpel to remove any threat to their identity, their anonymity. Give me something, Miss Vasir, anything I can use," Maxim offered.
"And then what?" Tela asked, eyes narrowed. Betraying the Shadow Broker was not something she was eager to do, but the Shadow Broker fucking up was what had led to her being in this position. Sure, they'd try to kill her, but Maxim wasn't going to hesitate to slit her throat once he was sure he'd wrung all the intel she had out of her the hard way. She'd seen his service record, and he had a lot of successful enhanced interrogations under his belt.
"I kill you. Tela Vasir disappears, just another name in my record. As far as the Shadow Broker needs to know, at least. Between the two of us, making you disappear while my grudge match with the Shadow Broker plays out is easy enough," Maxim offered.
"No hard feelings about me trying to kill you?" Tela asked with a snort.
"I'm not the type to get emotional over a little attempted murder. It was a good attempt, I got very lucky, to be honest. Pure chance gave you away, giving me an opportunity to avoid being taken out. You're good, Miss Vasir. It would be a shame to put you down like a dog," Maxim admitted, running his hand up her thigh.
Tela remained quiet for a moment, a frown on her face. This was less than ideal, between a rock and a hard place. At the end of the day, she had a simple thought process. Surviving today was more important than surviving the consequences of betraying the Shadow Broker. Yes, the Shadow Broker would hunt her down for this, but at least she'd be alive to be hunted down. If she were in his place, she wouldn't hesitate to put Max down after finishing the interrogation.
"The Shadow Broker is human, and fairly new to the position. The last one was a yahg, but the current one killed him when they raided his ship in the Hagalaz system," Tela revealed after a moment. "They cleaned house after becoming the current Shadow Broker, slaughtering nearly a third of his forces and consolidating a lot of his assets. I don't know their name or where they are based, only that they're a human female. She had me hunt down some of her rogue assets after claiming the title, who knew a little too much about her after the raid on his ship."
"How long ago did the title change hands?" Max asked, frowning deeply.
"Around five years ago. That's when the Shadow Broker's ship, his former base of operations, was raided and crashed onto the planet's surface. He used it as the hub for all his operations, and its destruction made it harder for the new Shadow Broker to fully take over his operations, which is why she needed me to handle some rogue assets," Tela admitted. "As long as they continued to provide me with the intel I got from her predecessor, she knew I didn't overly care who I was actually dealing with."
"That's certainly usable information," Max admitted, typing into his omnitool as the restraints came undone. She slipped from them, her head still swimming as she stood before him, still nude and unbothered by his appreciative looks. "I injected you with a substance that disrupts biotics, but it will wear off with no long-term consequences."
"Where am I?" Tela asked, following him out of the room as he gestured for her to do so. Heading through the underground corridors of the building, she paused as they reached the ground floor of what was likely a hideout. "We aren't on the Citadel, are we?"
"I wasn't going to make escaping that easy. We're on a planet in the Terminus system that I use as a hideout. I had a safehouse built here years ago and erased all records of it after the fact. The planet itself isn't the safest, but that just keeps unwanted visitors out and… non-compliant guests in. We're probably the only two sapient beings on this planet," Maxim explained as he poured himself a drink and then offered her a glass. She hesitated for a moment before accepting it. A human alcohol, if she had her guess right. Whiskey, was it?
"And what happens now?" Tela asked, sipping hers as she watched him do the same.
"That depends on you. I can let you go free. We both know that even killing me wouldn't get the Shadow Broker to forgive you for betraying her, so I'm confident you aren't petty enough to continue hunting me anyway," Max pointed out, getting a laugh of agreement. Yeah, a traitor was a traitor. The Shadow Broker would want her dead, and she was sure Max had recordings of her betrayal, ready to be posted if she crossed him. Along with the data on her working with the Shadow Broker in the first place, primed to destroy the Spectre program. "Or, you can lie low here, and we can work on producing you a new identity."
"If the Council think I'm dead, they'll revoke my Spectre credentials. Especially with the current heat on the program, I have to check in," Tela pointed out with a scowl. Fucking Saren.
"I can take care of that if the check-in is digital," Maxim offered with a smirk. "I stole your credentials when you tried to lock down the Phantom, and my Netrunner can spoof an image enough to fool the council, if you work with her to provide the right words."
"They do good work. They had me fooled, and chasing a dozen false leads," Tela praised, considering her options. "But the Broker almost certainly knows you have me."
"And they know about my Netrunner and her talents as well. They'll assume, correctly, that Cortana is posing as you. They'll just assume that I killed you for it, rather than that you are working with me. They don't know about this place, of that I am certain," Max pointed out.
Beside him, a hologram of a blue-skinned human appeared. Wait, was that a hard-light hologram? That was some impressive tech. It must be installed in every room of this safehouse to allow her to interact with things directly.
"Spoofing your reports would be easy enough, Spectre Vasir," Cortana added, her figure changing to a perfect match for Tela's, only wearing her armour instead of completely nude. "I can ensure that the Council has no reason to suspect your death or capture, but leave just enough of a breadcrumb trail for the Broker to realise that I'm reporting in your place."
"Which leaves you two with my Spectre authorisation codes," Tela pointed out, more amused than annoyed.
"It does," Max admitted shamelessly. "But if that was all I wanted, I could just kill you and have Cortana take your place. You're smart enough to know what I'm going to try and do."
"The same thing the current Broker and the one before them did," Tela snorted. "You want to kill her and take her place."
"And when I do, I'd rather have access to the same resources and agents that she has. You have a good deal going with her, there's no reason we can't continue to enjoy the same cooperation when I'm in the big chair," Maxim admitted, leaning against the counter and drinking from his glass. "Anyone capable of almost taking me out is worth having on my side. You get to keep access to the Broker's intel, saving lives and showing the Council the value of the Spectre program. I get a deniable asset of my own."
Tela swirled her drink, narrowing her eyes in thought. It was an enticing offer, even as she considered the downsides. With a Netrunner as talented as Cortana, she was almost certainly not going to be able to find records of whatever they used her Spectre authorisation for, but at the same time, hadn't Shepard just gotten her Spectre position back? Max was almost certainly going to steal her codes anyway. In the end, one thing stood out. This Shadow Broker was relatively new, especially by Asari standards. If she hadn't learnt the truth of how the title changed hands so much, she'd be far less eager to betray the Shadow Broker, but with the curtain pulled back, it was a less daunting idea.
"Is there a ship I can use to get off planet, if needed? I doubt you're planning on leaving the Phantom," Tela pointed out, getting a quiet laugh.
"True. There is a small personal craft for emergencies. It's not much, but it's capable of using the relays," Max admitted.
"How did you even pull this off? Do you have a system for yourself?" Tela asked, looking out of the large glass windows at the unknown sky.
"Pretty much. The Mass Effect relay isn't officially active, and thanks to how strict the Turians are with activating unknown relays, nobody has reason to check it or try to come here since I've put in the Citadel's systems that it's a dead relay. In truth, it was used by some Terminus pirates to store their loot, since they didn't care about the Council's laws on activating relays," Max explained with a small chuckle. "They're dead now, along with everyone who knew about this place. It's my own little slice of paradise."
He basically stole an entire star system. Even by her standards, that was damn impressive.
"Not bad," Tela admitted, before finally smirking and placing her hand on her hip. "So, are you going to get me some clothes or am I expected to stay naked for my entire stay?"
"I'm sure we can sort you out, if you insist," Max teased back, his eyes roaming her nude form.
Her best chance at surviving this mess was to stay under the radar until this mess between the Shadow Broker and Max was sorted. If the Shadow Broker won, she'd need to go into hiding. If Max won, she could take his offer and continue with the previous state of affairs, only this time she'd actually know the name of the person she was taking orders from and have more options to deal with him if the relationship went south.
"Well, there's no need to rush," Tela flirted, unashamed of her nudity.
– Maxim Russ –
Human. Female. Five Years.
It's not much to go on, but Spectre Vasir doesn't have all the pieces to this jigsaw puzzle.
The information she gave me is the same that she produced while pumped full of Angel Dust. She thinks she went straight from the 'accident' to waking up here. She didn't. I've had her for a couple of days now, much to Shepard's displeasure at my disappearing off on 'personal business' so soon.
Time enough to interrogate her under the influence of some drugs I produced, and to make some minor alterations to her minimal cyberware. Like all biotics, she has an implant to help her brain handle the power. Which is good because it means if she checks herself, she'll be expecting to find an implant in her brain. It makes it easier to hide the tracker and bomb I injected into her.
Just in case.
I got another skill for taking down a fellow agent, and I went for another Engineer skill because they're simply too useful. This time, I got a talent for crafting restraints of all kinds, perfect for holding an unruly biotic if things had turned antagonistic. I meant every word I said to her; she'd make a useful asset once I take the Shadow Broker's name for myself, and I hate wasting assets that I can still squeeze some use out of.
I only lied once, and only by omission. There is an emergency craft to get me off this planet if the Phantom is compromised or unavailable. It just won't work for anyone but me. She won't be able to bypass Cortana's security, and it requires my biometrics to use. Effectively, Miss Vasir is my guest with no way off this planet, as Cortana will ensure that any messages she sends are properly edited to ensure nobody else finds out about this place.
Frankly, with the security in this place and the chip in her implant, the damage Tela can do to my base if things go south is minimal at best. Worst case, the custodian droids need to clean up bits and pieces of Asari from my walls and remove the blue bloodstains from my carpets. It's not exactly their first time cleaning up bloodstains.
"Cortana, bring up my files on her movements," I order as I sit down at my desk, watching the holographic screens appear in front of me. I had my suspicions, to be perfectly honest. Not much, but a… hunch as to why Adam Smasher would work for the Shadow Broker. He's a sociopathic merc, sure, but he has no loyalty to anyone but himself and very few others.
Six years ago, another Section Seven survivor, a human female, vanished from the face of the galaxy, even by my standards to track. Sure, I was busy and didn't put too much effort into looking into their location, but they were taking lengths to hide themselves from the digital world, as if they were worried an AI was looking for them.
Five years ago, the Shadow Broker was killed when someone raided his base above Hagalaz. Things went south and far more damage was done than likely intended. Who do I know who treats every mission like a demolition job? But Adam doesn't have the skills to handle the Broker's vast network; even I'd struggle to do so without Cortana on my side. No, assuming he was the one to kill the last Shadow Broker, he would have to be working with someone.
Suddenly, the Shadow Broker is harassing the Systems Alliance through pirates, proxies and other methods, and more tellingly, they are interested in a project where the end goal is digital immortality. Someone that Saburo Arasaka would be willing to work with, and let in on his special project.
As I said, she just didn't have all the pieces to this puzzle. Meanwhile, I'd already finished the edges and just needed the rest of the pieces to fill in the middle.
The solution, when the puzzle is all filled in and the picture revealed? One Tanya Degurechaff. Ex-Section Seven with a deep hatred for the Alliance and Adam Smasher's former partner. She was the brains, he was the brawn.
As Ann said, I was the luckiest out of all of Halsey's guinea pigs. Adam Smasher was left with devastating biological problems that pushed him to go full Borg to get away from them, replacing all but his brain with cybernetics.
Tanya? Her body reacted oddly to the process that slows our ageing. I still have the body of a twenty-year-old and likely will for decades to come if Ann's data is right. Tanya? She had the same, at first. Then, she realised that she was just a tiny bit shorter, a cup size smaller, a shoe size lower. It was small at first, barely noticeable if you saw her day to day, but soon enough she needed a booster chair to sit at her desk as her body continued to de-age. Halsey was trying to return us to our prime. I lost a couple of years at most, Tanya lost decades. The intelligence enhancer procedure worked best on her, leaving her with a genius mind and a body too small and frail to utilise her incredible learning speeds.
I've had my suspicions that Tanya herself was behind Section Seven's exposure, because she's never been one to let go of a grudge. She suspected that Halsey used the rest of them as test subjects to perfect her process to make one perfect agent. Adam was the first to undergo the second round of testing, then Tanya, and with each one, different issues were… ironed out.
I was the last to go through the final enhancements, and the process was improved by then. Something Tanya was understandably bitter about. To her, the rest of the Seven were just test subjects in Halsey's pursuit of perfection. I had the best reaction to the first round of testing, so she kept her golden goose on the side in the hopes of perfecting the second round before she risked my valuable body on an imperfect procedure.
Halsey was never what you could call affectionate, but I wasn't blind to her preference for me over the others. Perhaps if she hadn't been arrested for her experiments, she'd have perfected the process she used on me to make an army of Maxim Russes. I suppose we'll never know, now. Even I don't know what happened to her after she was pulled out of the Section Seven project.
Her work laid the foundation for the genetic modding that all Alliance soldiers go through today. As much as they decried her methods, the Alliance didn't hesitate to benefit from her work.
Tanya needs an escape from her regressing body. I knew she was searching for a way to fix it before. She even got me to chase down some leads for her before she went silent. Saburo hates the Alliance over the 'Corpo Wars', which killed his favourite son, but Tanya and Adam both did work for Arasaka over the years, and she helped him become the dominant megacorp in the Galaxy.
I should know, I've got a decent amount of shares in Arasaka. Well, I have shares everywhere. The advantage to being the one to cause so many scenes is that it's pretty easy to predict how various companies will rise and fall as a result, and a little insider trading never hurt anybody. Cortana manages my portfolio, but it's safe to say that I am an extremely wealthy man. I have to be, all these contacts, gear and information ain't cheap, and as an independent, I have to source and fund my own stuff. The one thing I truly miss from working for an agency is having someone else to do all that stuff for me. As useful as Cortana is, we have to limit how much she interacts with the world at large because AI research is very restricted, and I'd bring an immense amount of heat down on me if it became public.
The Alliance won't admit I have her because that would mean admitting that they made her to begin with.
Shaking my head, I frown to myself. I won't find Tanya if she doesn't want to be found. She knows all my tricks, all my methods, and she's certainly made countermeasures for Cortana. The Night City heist is still my best bet, but it might be time to… expand its reach.
Saburo is too damn smart not to know something. The data from the Relic will confirm or disprove my suspicions, and if it proves that I'm right about their identity? I think I need to have a word with the Emperor of Arasaka.
He might even survive it.